Day 347: Jaws

Jaws

Jaws, you seriously have to go to the dentist

Movies, like words, have power. Some may scoff at the idea that watching a movie or even reading a book could affect one person, let alone large groups of people, but it's true. The novel Coma, a story about hospitals selling organs was later adapted into a film and caused organ donations to drop 60%. Even the original broadcast of War Of The Worlds caused massive panic. Even though these are just forms of entertainment, they still to this day manage to cause fear and hysteria. While that says a lot about the gullibility and paranoia of humans, it also says a lot of the movies and books themselves. No horror movie still has quite the affect on people like Jaws.

Jaws is a 1975 horror thriller, based off the novel by Peter Benchley, directed by Stephen Spielberg (E.T., Saving Private Ryan). The movie stars Roy Schneider (The French Connection, 2010) as Chief Martin Brody and Richard Dreyfuss (Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Mr. Holland's Opus) as Matt Hooper. Days before the Fourth of July weekend begins on Amity Island, a young woman named Chrissie is mauled by a shark. Chief Brody wants to shut down the entire beach to ensure that no one else is attacked, but Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton, The Graduate, The Hustler) pressures Brody to reconsider. He claims that the entire town will suffer if the beaches are closed, taking away precious tourist dollars. Vaughn tries to pass off Chrissie's death as possibly a boating accident. When a young boy is killed by the shark, a bounty is placed, sparking a small frenzy by amateur fishermen. Quint (Robert Shaw, The Sting, From Russia With Love), a salty veteran fisherman, offers to capture the shark for $10,000, but no one takes him up on it. Marine biologist Matt Hooper comes to Amity and inspects Chrissie's body, declaring it most definitely the work of a shark. The amateur fishermen capture a large tiger shark relieving the town, but not Hooper. That night, Hooper and Brody cut open the shark and find no human remains inside. After inspecting a boat that had been attacked, Hooper discovers a tooth belonging to a great white shark. On the Fourth Of July, the shark attacks again, killing a man and sparking a panic. Brody convinces Vaughn to hire Quint as both he and Hooper join him on the mission. While Brody throws chum out into the ocean, the beast surfaces, showing just how large it truly is. Quint estimates it at twenty-five feet in length and over 6,000. How will these three men defeat this behemoth killing machine?

A pack of smokes a day might work

It's not often that a movie, especially a horror movie, has cultural and environmental repercussions, but when it does, you know you've made something larger than anyone could have predicted. Real life attendance at beaches were down following the movie's release and the number of sharks killed reached the thousands. Shark attacks do occur in real life, but not to the degree they do in Jaws. Peter Benchley actually regretted writing his novel because of all the deaths. That doesn't stop people from fearing that a shark will get them every time they go into the ocean. Heck, as a little kid, I was afraid there were sharks in a pool. A pool! How does this happen? It happens because the movie is so incredibly convincing. The movie's tension and suspense are what make the fear so believable. The attacks happen in broad daylight and are undiscerning. Men, women, and children are all victims and to make things worse, they are all completely helpless. The shark stays hidden for most of the film, allowing the audience to cast their own fears upon this deep-sea killer. While this was partially due to malfunctions with the mechanical shark, it worked to the movie's favor. When we finally see the shark, it is more terrifying than the audience could possibly imagine. It is incredibly large and impossibly vicious. Coupled with the movie's large amount of violence and massive amounts of blood, the shark is the epitome of horror.

The story of Jaws was inspired by actual shark attacks in New Jersey in 1916. They weren't exactly at the level of the attacks in Jaws, but it did spark the same amount of frenzy. All of this does raise the question, “Is any of this possible?” Well, I am no shark expert, but lucky for us, I happen to know one. Chuck Bangley is a PhD student specializing in sharks and marine biology and was kind enough to give lend his expertise to 365 Days Of Horror: “White sharks are physically capable of most of Jaws' feats of strength, at least in the first movie. Any given Shark Week special will show that great whites are capable of leaping out of the water, and they are capable of ramming through a shark cage (though they'd likely hurt themselves in the process). Real great whites are not nearly as motivated to destroy boats and eat humans as the shark in Jaws, though there are documented cases of sharks accidentally landing on boats and doing some damage. White sharks do occur in the New England waters where Jaws takes place, and the population has been steadily increasing as seal numbers increase on Cape Cod. Large predatory sharks are usually highly migratory, so it's unlikely that Brodie, Quint, and Hooper would succeed in hunting down the right one. Modern satellite tagging has proven that large, potentially dangerous sharks like great whites and tiger sharks cover huge ranges, and any shark responsible for an attack on a human would likely be miles away before any response could happen. This is why shark culls following attacks aren't effective.” Thanks, Chuck! Be sure to follow Chuck on Twitter at @SpinyDag and read his shark-related adventures at http://yalikedags.southernfriedscience.com/

FurryCon 2012

Jaws was the original summer blockbuster with it's combination of action, thrills, and suspense. Spielberg uses his careful eye to capture all the actual while spending enough time to build up atmosphere and tension. The movie's iconic music is simple, yet powerful. To this day, the “Dunnn dun. Dunnn dun.” theme only means that something big and bad is coming. Both Roy Schneider and Richard Dreyfuss play their roles very well, each bringing something different to their roles, creating unique, but relatable characters. Robert Shaw is great as the old-timer Quint, giving the movie a harsher, realistic edge. While some may say that the movie fits into the action genre, it is most certainly horror. There are real scares and plenty of atmosphere. Jaws is a classic for a reason as it is good from top to bottom. It's well-known and well-loved and deserves all the accolades it gets.

10/10

Day 194: Leviathan

Leviathan

Great Mastodon album, so-so movie

We know more about outer space than we do about the ocean. Despite the majority world being covered by it, we know very little of the underwater world. That's why every few years we hear about new marine life being discovered as we delve deeper and deeper into the watery unknown. These creatures are not the cute and cuddly type either. Just google “bioluminescent fish” and sleep tight. These things are just reminders that we know so little about our own world and that we can still be killed by monsters. It's no surprise that the ocean is a great location for horror.

Leviathan is a 1989 horror movie starring Peter Weller (Robocop, Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across The 8^th Dimension) as geologist Steven Beck. Beck is in command of an undersea mining station owned by Tri-Oceanic Corp. The crew's 90 days on the job is almost up when they come across a sunken Russian ship called “Leviathan.” One of the crew members, Sixpack (Daniel Stern, C.H.U.D., Rookie of the Year) discovers a box containing documents, a videotape, and a flask. Sixpack secretly drinks from the flask and shares it with another crew member named Bowman (Lisa Eilbacher, An Officer And A Gentleman, Beverly Hills Cop). Dr. Thompson (Richard Crenna, First Blood, Hot Shots! Part Deux) and Beck view the video tape which they believe talks about the Russian crew's poor health. When they study the Russian ship, Doc believes that it was a sunk by a torpedo. The next morning, Sixpack wakes up sick with a strange rash. He gets progressively worse and Doc consults his computer which guesses his condition is due to a genetic alteration. Sixpack dies hours later with Bowman also becoming sick. Rather than meeting the same fate, she commits suicide. Doc and Beck find that Sixpack and Bowman's bodies have begun to mutate and are merging together. They get the rest of the crew to aid in dumping of their bodies, but are attacked by the mutated bodies which have no become a horrible monster. They are able to jettison the bodies, but a mutated piece remains. The crew discovers that the Russian crew were being experimented on and the ship was scuttled when the experiment grew out of control. The remaining piece of the monster regenerates, attacking and absorbing the crew. Beck asks Tri-Oceanic Corp's CEO, Martin (Meg Foster, They Live, Masters Of The Universe), for help, but she says a hurricane is blocking their rescue. How will the rest of the crew survive?

"(Sigh) I miss Detroit."

How have I never heard of a movie with a cast that includes Peter Weller, Daniel Stern, Ernie Hudson, Meg Foster, and Richard Crenna? All of these actors have been in popular movies so you'd think Leviathan would be more well known. One reason why this may be the case is because Leviathan came out the same year as The Abyss, a far better and far more popular underwater movie. It's hard not to make comparisons to The Abyss as both are very similar. The mutating and adapting monster that can take the form of it's victims is straight out of The Thing. They even use flamethrowers to attack it, just like in The Thing. The scenes of the crew running through a sterile, industrial environment and a big slug-like creature coming out of someones chest is just like Alien. How could no one notice that these scenes had already been done before and done far better? Maybe they though that the inclusion of Martin and the soulless corporation would create a new story, but that subplot is unnecessary window-dressing. No one cares about the evil CEO because she's not given enough time on screen for us to hate her.

The story itself is pretty basic and not very exciting. It is essentially a monster movie that doesn't get to the monster until about halfway through and then doesn't have the decency to completely show it until the end. It's a shame they do this because the monster actually looks very good. Of course, it still looks like an earlier design from The Thing, but that's more of a compliment than a diss. When I watch a monster movie, I want to see the monster. A movie like Alien is scary because it creates a terrifying atmosphere and fear of the unknown. Leviathan is too well lit and lacks subtlety to be scary. There is no mystery of who could be the monster, like in The Thing. Without these things, we just have to rely on the actor's performances and action. The acting is good thanks to the impressive cast playing all their parts perfectly. The action is decent, but not enough to carry the movie. When your monster movie lacks action and excitement, what is the point?

Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck

Leviathan is your average monster movie that contains ideas and scenes from far better horror movies. Sadly, it has nothing to do with Thomas Hobbes political book, Leviathan. The acting is good, but that shouldn't be a surprise considering the caliber of actors involved. The monster looks very good, but we do not see it enough. The subplot involving the evil CEO from the evil corporation attempts to make the movie unique, but not enough time is given to develop anything important. The action is decent, but only comes towards the end of the movie. Leviathan isn't a bad monster movie, it is just too similar to movies that are much better and scarier.

6/10